Pre-dawn workouts help mothers get, stay in shape

Carrying sandbags part of the routine

By PAUL NYHAN, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Sunday, November 16, 2008

Photo: Paul Joseph Brown/Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Christi Masi, a fitness trainer with The Healthy Goddess, leads a workout of mothers who meet twice a week before dawn at the Madrona Playground in Seattle. In addition to shoulder-blade push-ups, the group runs stairs and hauls sandbags. less

Christi Masi, a fitness trainer with The Healthy Goddess, leads a workout of mothers who meet twice a week before dawn at the Madrona Playground in Seattle. In addition to shoulder-blade push-ups, the group ... more

An hour later, they scatter -- slipping back to their homes as their children and husbands wake up, the first commuters gather at bus stops and the sun rises.

In city parks around Seattle, groups of mothers have begun meeting twice a week in the morning gloom for intense workouts, squeezing another hour out of days already packed with parent-teacher conferences, work, soccer practices, family dinners and bath time.

In tight-knit groups, they follow trainer Christi Masi through sessions that resemble high school sports practices more than middle-age fitness routines. They run stairs and "suicide" wind sprints, with a heavy dose of abdominal work.

Mothers come for a variety of reasons: to recover from childbirth, stave off aging, stay fit for their children and remain energized. But in a parenting culture dominated by "yummy mommies" and claims that 40 -- even 50 -- is the new 30, they share a different motivation.

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"It is the one time I will not have a conflict, that something will not come up. Nothing is going to get in the way of it," said Sally Bock, a senior vice president at Pyramid Communications and mother of 3-year-old Beatrice and 6-year-old Zachary.

After working out, Bock showers, packs lunches and drives a school car pool at 8:10 a.m. Then she's off to her job, checking e-mail at traffic lights, until 3:30 p.m., when it's time to ferry Beatrice and Zachary to soccer and gymnastics.

Bock's day finally slows around 8:30 p.m., when she sits outside her daughter's bedroom, fires up her MacBook and checks her work e-mails.

"There are the nights, once a week, when I fall asleep in my son's bed, reading," said Bock, 42, who has run the New York City Marathon three times. "Unfortunately, there are not that many of them."

When Bock and other mothers gather, there are no Stairmasters, weight machines or fresh towels. They have almost no gear -- using park benches for tricep dips, wet grass for sit-ups and occasionally a few cords for tension work.

"I was worried at first, because it was a group of moms that it would be more chatty and less of a workout," said Liz Gorton, who has two young sons and a job at Washington Mutual's customer experience group. "When people get there, they are ready to get going."

One recent morning, they got going with a jog that was the easiest part of the session.

Over the next hour, group leader Carol Rava Treat pushed the pace, leading her charges, who ranged in age from early 30s to mid-40s, in push-ups, tricep dips, jumpers, curls, split jumps and then those shoulder-blade push-ups.

For the final 30 minutes, they moved to the playfield for yet more ab work, until Treat divided the group in two for old-school wind sprints. The group was dominated by working moms, but there were a few stay-at-home mothers (and one only 10 weeks removed from giving birth).

"One of the things we talked about is how much the class has connected us to the community," said Masi, who runs The Healthy Goddess fitness business in Mount Baker. "In this case, the women of the neighborhood pulled it together themselves."

People have exercised in city parks for years, but these mothers started only 10 months ago.

It started after Treat grabbed one of Masi's fliers for a workout class last year. By January, a dozen midcareer mothers with serious athletic credentials were gathering at Mount Baker Park.

Now, there are also groups in Madrona and Green Lake, each with its own personality.

At Madrona Playground, many of the moms, focused on getting back in shape, leave as soon as the workout ends. Across the city at Green Lake, moms sometimes grab a cup of coffee afterward. The Mount Baker moms are the hard-core bunch, including former NCAA Division I athletes, a tennis pro and marathoners.